Hess LNG plans take another hit

Tuesday

Mar 25, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 25, 2008 at 9:53 AM

Two offices under the state Department of Environmental Protection have rejected a plan by Weaver’s Cove Energy to build a liquefied natural gas terminal, dredge part of the Taunton River and install a pipeline under the river to deliver gas.

Grant Welker

Two offices under the state Department of Environmental Protection have rejected a plan by Weaver’s Cove Energy to build a liquefied natural gas terminal, dredge part of the Taunton River and install a pipeline under the river to deliver gas.

The Bureau of Resource Protection and Wetlands and Waterways Program both issued decisions on March 10 to Weaver’s Cove.

The Wetlands and Waterways Program said it rejected the proposal because Weaver’s Cove’s plan wouldn’t serve “proper public purpose.” Weaver’s Cove’s presumption regarding public purpose was “rebutted,” it said, by the U.S. Coast Guard’s ruling last October that the waterways leading to Weaver’s Cove are “unsuitable” for tankers heading to and from the terminal.

Weaver’s Cove “failed to demonstrate that the project serves a proper public purpose that provides greater benefits than detriments to rights of the public,” Wetlands and Waterways Program Director Lealdon Langley said in the decision.

The Bureau of Resource Protection rejected the application because it said Weaver’s Cove failed to provide enough information in its application. It concluded “that the applicant has failed to demonstrate that the project or activity as proposed will be conducted in a manner that will not violate applicable water quality standards and will minimize environmental impacts.”

The application, the bureau said, included contradictions between the US Coast Guard’s letter of recommendation against the project, and assumptions and supporting submissions of details of the project.

Both rulings are subject to a 21-day appeal period. Hess LNG spokesman James Grasso could not be reached for comment.

Weaver’s Cove applied for permits to dredge 2.3 million cubic yards of sediments under the Taunton River and build an LNG terminal, and Mill River Pipeline submitted an application to install a 24-inch pipeline under the river to connect to the Duke/Algonquin Gas transmission system.

“Approving a dredge-based water quality certification without a set of valid parameters that delineate an approvable scope of the project... is infeasible and inconsistent with regulations that require the project meet water quality standards and minimize environmental impacts,” Bureau of Resource Protection Acting Assistant Commissioner Glenn Haas said in the decision.

This month’s rulings are the latest from federal and state agencies to reject the LNG plan. Last June, the state Executive Office of Public Safety urged Weaver’s Cove to abandon its plans, and last October in what was considered the biggest blow to the LNG plans, the US Coast Guard called the risk of deaths “unacceptably high” if a tanker hit the old Brightman Street Bridge or its replacement under construction.

Lawmakers have attempted to derail the plan, too. In January, an amendment created by Sen. Joan Menard, D-Fall River, was approved on Beacon Hill to halt allowing any further permits for LNG facilities in the state within a mile of a school, hospital or nursing home.

But all along, Hess has maintained it will continue with its plans by appealing rulings and calling measures like Menard’s “unconstitutional.”